The IPL 2024 Auction has been eventful none the less. Teams spilled their chases on quite a few tried and tested superstars. But overall it was the uncapped Indian players who stole the show. Kolkata Knight Riders surprised everyone by buying Mitchell Starc for a price of 24.75 crore, making him the highest priced player in the history of the Indian Premier League. Here we take a look as to how the teams fared in the auction.
Chennai Super Kings
MS Dhoni’s side are the defending champions and they fared well. Not only did they iron out their creases they made some stellar buys, making them one of the most strategic teams to participate in the auction.
CSK needed a top order batter and a replacement for Ben Stokes. They roped in young Kiwi star Rachin Ravindra for mere 1.8 crore. Shardul Thakur made a comeback for just 4 crore. On the other hand, Kiwi star Daryl Mitchell (bought for 14 crore) will cover all the lapses that the team has.
Furthermore, the inclusion of Sameer Rizvi, tipped as right handed Suresh Raina is a perfect cover for the retired Ambati Rayudu. Mustifizur Rahman will surely be a big boost to the pace attack.
CSK Full Squad: MS Dhoni (c), Moeen Ali, Deepak Chahar, Devon Conway, Tushar Deshpande, Shivam Dube, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Ravindra Jadeja, Ajay Mandal, Mukesh Choudhary, Matheesha Pathirana, Ajinkya Rahane, Shaik Rasheed, Mitchell Santner, Simarjeet Singh, Nishant Sindhu, Prashant Solanki, Maheesh Theekshana, Rachin Ravindra, Shardul Thakur, Daryl Mitchell, Sameer Rizvi, Mustafizur Rahman, Avanish Rao Aravelly.
Kolkata Knight Riders
Tipped as the big spenders, KKR made justice to their name. The Kolkata based outfits stole the show when they signed Mitchell Starc for a whooping sum of 24.75 crore, making him the highest priced player in the history of the league. KKR needed a complete bowling overhaul and was prudent in their approach.
Mujeeb Ur Rahman (2 crore) and Sherfane Rutherford (1.5 crore) are great buys who will surely flourish now under the guidance of headcoach Gautam Gambhir. KKR needed a backup keeper and found the tried and tested KS Bharat for just 50 lakhs. Manish Pandey is also a great addition to the team for 50 lakhs.
KKR also went on a raid on the high performing domestic players, easily capturing the likes of Chetan Sakaria (50 lakhs) and Angkrish Raghuvanshi (20 lakh) and Ramandeep Singh (20 lakh). Having spent their major budget on one player, KKR cameback calmly to seal some clever and strategic buys.
KKR Full Squad: Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Shreyas Iyer (c), Jason Roy, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Gus Atkinson, Sakib Hussain.
Mumbai Indians
Mumbai Indians had their biggest player capture before the auction. They roped in Hardik Pandya from Gujarat Titans and made him the captain. But with a rather limited budget, they weren’t the biggest spenders in IPL 2024, unlike MI behavior. MI’s highest priced player was Proteas pacer Gerald Coetzee who was signed for 5 crore.
MI released Jofra Archer and needed to bolster their pace attack. And they did that with flying colours. Apart from Coetzee they roped in Sri Lanka’s pace duo of Dilshan Madushanka (4.6 crore) and Nuwan Thushara (4.8 crore). Shreyas Gopal was signed as back up for Piyussh Chawla while Mohammad Nabi (1.5 crore) offers diversity in both batting and bowling in the lower order.
MI Full Squad: Rohit Sharma, Dewald Brevis, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, N. Tilak Varma, Tim David, Vishnu Vinod, Arjun Tendulkar, Shams Mulani, Nehal Wadhera, Jasprit Bumrah, Kumar Kartikeya, Piyush Chawla, Akash Madhwal, Jason Behrendorff, Romario Shepherd, Hardik Pandya (c), Gerald Coetzee, Dilshan Madushanka, Shreyas Gopal, Nuwan Thushara, Naman Dhir, Anshul Kamboj, Mohammad Nabi, Shivalik Sharma.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
Often deemed as a mixed bag, SRH reiterated the same in the auction. First they spilled huge cash for one particular player and then made some sensible cheap buys. SRH created history when they bought Pat Cummins for 20.50 crore, temporarily making him the highest priced player in IPL.
SRH got another World Cup star, Travis Head for 6.8 crore and then was quick to pick Wanindu Hasaranga for his base price of 1.5 crore. They needed another pacer which they got in form of the veteran Jaydev Unadkat for just 1.6 crore.
SRH Full Squad: Abdul Samad, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram (c), Marco Jansen, Rahul Tripathi, Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, Sanvir Singh, Heinrich Klaasen, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Agarwal, T. Natarajan, Anmolpreet Singh, Mayank Markande, Upendra Singh Yadav, Umran Malik, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Shahbaz Ahmed, Travis Head, Wanindu Hasaranga, Pat Cummins, Jaydev Unadkat, Akash Singh, Jhathavedh Subramanyan.
Delhi Capitals
One of the poor performers of last season needed a good rebuild. And Delhi Capitals did not disappoint. Sourav Ganguly, Ricky Ponting being the masterminds of the pick where very careful strategic in picking their desired players. Harry Brook for just 4 crore was a good buy followed by some really sensible singings like Jhye Richardson (5 crore) and Shai Hope (75 lakh).
DC went on to pay 7.2 crore for Kumar Kushagra. The Delhi outfits decided to bank heavily on the young wicket-keeper and destructive batter from Jharkhand. Predicted as a buy for the future, Kushagra can come in handy if he plays some big shots in the middle order.
DC Full Squad: Rishabh Pant (c), Pravin Dubey, David Warner, Vicky Ostwal, Prithvi Shaw, Anrich Nortje, Abishek Porel, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Lungi Ngidi, Lalit Yadav, Khaleel Ahmed, Mitchell Marsh, Ishant Sharma, Yash Dhull, Mukesh Kumar, Harry Brook, Tristan Stubbs, Ricky Bhui, Kumar Kushagra, Rasikh Dar, Jhye Richardson, Sumit Kumar, Shai Hope, Swastik Chhikara.
Punjab Kings
Known for their lavish spendings, PBKS didn’t disappoint this time. The biggest signing for PBKS was ex RCB pacer Harshal Patel. The Punjab outfits spent 11.75 crore to rope in the veteran pacer. Making a late charge in the auction after initially staying quite, PBKS bought Rilee Rossouw for 8 crore.
English all-rounder Chris Woakes was picked for just 4.2 crore. With their main players done, PBKS went on to shopping spree to buy uncapped stars in a plethora, like Vishwanath Singh (20 lakh), Shashank Singh (20 lakh), Tanay Thyagarajan (20 lakh), and Prince Choudhary (20 lakh)
PBKS Full Squad: Shikhar Dhawan (c), Matthew Short, Prabhsimran Singh, Jitesh Sharma, Sikandar Raza, Rishi Dhawan, Liam Livingstone, Atharva Taide, Arshdeep Singh, Nathan Ellis, Sam Curran, Kagiso Rabada, Harpreet Brar, Rahul Chahar, Harpreet Bhatia, Vidwath Kaverappa, Shivam Singh, Harshal Patel, Chris Woakes, Ashutosh Sharma, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, Shashank Singh, Tanay Thyagarajann, Prince Choudhary, Rilee Rossouw.
Gujarat Titans
Last year’s finalists were active in the IPL 2024 Auction. Their primary objective was to fulfil the gap left behind by Hardik Pandya. As customary they spilled some decent cash to bolster their otherwise set squad. Spencer Johnson was the highest priced after the Australian pacer joined the side for a staggering sum of 10 crore.
The further inclusion of Shahrukh Khan (7.4 crore), Umesh Yadav (5.8 crore) and Robin Minz (3.6 crore) acts as a big boost their core setup. Lastly, the picks of Kartik Tyagi (60 lakh), Azmatullah Omarzai (50 lakh) are extremely strategic which makes GT a force to be reckoned with.
GT Full Squad: David Miller, Shubman Gill (c), Matthew Wade, Wriddhiman Saha, Kane Williamson, Abhinav Manohar, B. Sai Sudharsan, Darshan Nalkande, Vijay Shankar, Jayant Yadav, Rahul Tewatia, Mohammed Shami, Noor Ahmad, Sai Kishore, Rashid Khan, Joshua Little, Mohit Sharma, Azmatullah Omarzai, Umesh Yadav, Shahrukh Khan, Sushant Mishra, Kartik Tyagi, Manav Suthar, Spencer Johnson, Robin Minz.
Royal Challengers Bangalore
Like MI, Royal Challengers Bangalore had their main pick on retention day when they signed Cameron Green from the Mumbai outfits. But in the auction, Alzarri Joseph for 11.5 crore was the biggest pick for RCB. Another great pick in the accelerated round was buying Lockie Ferguson for just 2 crore.
RCB fended off GT to rope in Yash Dayal for 5 crore and quickly picked up Tom Curran for 1.5 crore to complete their squad.
RCB Full Squad: Faf du Plessis (c), Glenn Maxwell, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Anuj Rawat, Dinesh Karthik, Suyash Prabhudessai, Will Jacks, Mahipal Lomror, Karn Sharma, Manoj Bhandage, Mayank Dagar, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Reece Topley, Himanshu Sharma, Rajan Kumar, Cameron Green, Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal, Tom Curran, Lockie Ferguson, Swapnil Singh, Saurav Chauhan.
Lucknow Super Giants
Lucknow Super Giants had their strategy cut out ahead of the IPL 2024 auction. The IPL franchise retained 17 of their players ahead of the auction and needed to some smart additions to round off their team. They did just that. The Lucknow franchise eventually made 6 quality additions to their squad.
Lucknow came into the auction looking for some all-rounders. While they dodged the big-name guns which other teams went for, they picked up the players they wanted. Lucknow made a shrewd deal when they picked up English all-rounder David Willey. Along with the foreign signing, Arshin Kulkarni and Mohd. Arshad Khan became the other all-rounder buys for Lucknow. The side bought a single specialist batter from the auction, in the form of Australia’s Ashton Turner.
The Lucknow Super Giants were a bit short in their domestic pace bowling unit after releasing Jaydev Unadkat before the auction. Therefore, it was no surprise that Sanjiv Goenka’s team went all-out for Shivam Mavi, who became the most expensive LSG buy in the IPL 2024 auction. Another promising left-arm orthodox spinner M. Siddharth was shrewdly picked up by LSG too.
LSG Full Squad: KL Rahul (c), Quinton de Kock, Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Kyle Mayers, Marcus Stoinis, Deepak Hooda, Devdutt Padikkal, Ravi Bishnoi, Naveen-ul-Haq, Krunal Pandya, Yudhvir Singh, Prerak Mankad, Yash Thakur, Amit Mishra, Mark Wood, Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan, K. Gowtham, Shivam Mavi, Arshin Kulkarni, M. Siddharth, Ashton Turner, David Willey, Mohd. Arshad Khan.
Rajasthan Royals
Rajasthan Royals had a satisfying IPL 2024 Auction. The Rajasthan based franchise had decent amount on their purse left after releasing some high profile players including English batter Joe Root before the auction. Rajasthan Royals primarily searched for batters to complement their already adept squad, and they did their job wonderfully.
West Indian power-hitter Rovman Powell was high on the list of Rajasthan Royals’ priority and they made no mistake in making the highest bid of Rs 7.4 crore to buy the batter. Talented young batter Shubham Dubey was also roped in by RR after fending off strong interest from other IPL teams.
The RR lacked a fast bowler after letting some go ahead of the auction, and they made up that deficiency South African pacer Nandre Burger who recently made his debut for the Proteas in T20I series against India. RR also bought English wicketkeeper Tom Kohler-Cadmore and domestic all-rounder Abid Mushtaq.
RR Full Squad: Sanju Samson (c), Jos Buttler, Shimron Hetmyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, Riyan Parag, Donovan Ferreira, Kunal Rathore, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Sen, Navdeep Saini, Prasidh Krishna, Sandeep Sharma, Trent Boult, Yuzvendra Chahal, Adam Zampa, Avesh Khan, Rovman Powell, Shubham Dubey, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Abid Mushtaq, Nandre Burger.